


Does it ever feel like a dream?

by aprofessorstale



Series: The Stranger [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:56:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8833012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprofessorstale/pseuds/aprofessorstale
Summary: After the main Stranger storyline, and somewhere in between the epilogue.A snippet of Steve and Bucky's life after all that fucking drama.





	

“Does it ever feel like a dream?”

Steve glanced over at Bucky as they both sprawled out in bed. Bucky was wearing one of the pairs of Captain America boxers, but Steve was past the point of noticing. They’d been living together, again...finally, for a year.

Steve snorted in response. “Which part?”

Bucky just kept staring at the ceiling. “All of it.”

Steve stayed quiet a moment and Bucky kept speaking.

“We were normal once, remember? And don’t do the ‘we were never normal, Buck’ thing. You know what I’m talking about. We had families. We had jobs. We had lives.”

Steve rolled onto his side, putting his attention more firmly on Bucky. “Where is this coming from?”

Bucky laughed. “Where isn’t it coming from? I woke up this morning and wrapped a blanket around my arm cause it was making me cold and it felt normal, but that’s… that’s not remotely normal. None of this…”

Steve scooted closer, slowly, warily. He pressed his lips to Bucky’s right shoulder and laid his head there, curling into him. Bucky instinctively moved to accommodate him. Steve laid his hand over Bucky’s heart. Bucky waited for the speech about nothing changing, they’re still together, etc. “Yeah, Buck. It does feel like a dream. It feels like a nightmare.”

That finally pulled his eyes away from the ceiling.

Steve continued, “Hell, _I_ have nightmares about what they put you through while I was in the ice. Sometimes I think I remember being there, like I was paralyzed but still awake and I could hear you screaming but I couldn’t move.”

They breathed together a moment. Bucky sighed. “How did we get here?”

Steve laughed. “Think that’s my fault.”

Bucky quirked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

Steve sat up, looking down at him, surprised. “What, have you really not traced back all the events of our lives to one moment? Buck, we would never have been on that caliber of a mission if I wasn’t Captain America. It all ties back to that night at the fair when I met Dr. Erskine. You became the Winter Soldier because you knew me.”

“Steve-”

“Buck, you know I’m right. I’m… we’re too far past the guilt to dwell on that. I’m just talking facts right now. How the hell would you be the Winter Soldier if you didn’t know me?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Me getting captured had nothing to do with knowing you. I would’ve been drafted no matter what.”

Steve glared at him. “Those experiments happened because mine was successful.”

Bucky covered his face with his hands. “Jesus, Steve. The experiment might have worked on anyone, they just picked you cause you were the _most_ worthy of it. And don’t get me wrong, I’m fucking glad you got it over anyone else, but it would’ve all gone down the same regardless of who they put in that test tube.”

Steve stared off into the distance. “But the train-”

Bucky rolled over and fake screamed into the pillow. Steve laughed softly. “They would’ve looked for me after the experiments, not that I would've escaped without you. I was the only one that survived. They wouldn’t have let me go. I mean maybe I wouldn't have the arm, but then again I wouldn't put it past them to cut my arm off anyway just for fun.”

Steve flopped back down into the pillows. “Huh. So.”

They spoke at the same time. “Hydra.”

Bucky rolled back over to look at Steve. “Honestly, that whole ‘moment this all started’, all that changed by you becoming Cap is that you got to stop dying...kind of, you met Peggy, and you pulled me back when we ran into each other in the future. No one else would’ve fought for me like that. SHIELD would’ve killed me.”

It was quiet for a long time. Steve finally broke it. “Know what feels like a dream? The hate sex.”

Bucky burst out laughing so hard he almost fell off the bed.

Steve laughed in response. “Don’t get me wrong it was good sex.”

Bucky sobered, “Steve. It was _great_ sex.”

Steve shrugged. “You were biased.”

Bucky thought about that and nodded. “I guess.”

Steve glanced out the window as a car honked loudly. “Sometimes when my eyes are still closed when I wake up, I feel like I’m waking up in Brooklyn and this was all a bad dream and I have to go pick you up from the docks cause you’re finally getting home from the war. Rebecca begging me to take her with me, but me knowing some bully I had a grudge with might show up and me not wanting to get her involved.”

Bucky’s eyes fell closed. “That’s not hard to imagine.” Steve elbowed him. Bucky smirked without opening his eyes. Steve closed his eyes too. “What else do you imagine waking up to?”

Steve spoke bluntly. “A blow job.”

Bucky elbowed him. “Seriously.”

Steve let out a breath. “Sometimes I wonder, if I hadn’t been chosen for the experiment, if Peggy would’ve written me letters. And I’d draw her pictures. And probably bug her to check your records every now and then. And eventually she’d run into you and write me telling me how you hit on her and she laughed in your face.”

Bucky hummed in agreement. “That’s likely.”

“Sometimes I think about when Christmas used to not be creepy.”

Bucky groaned and opened his eyes. “I can’t undo that.”

Steve shook his head. “I heard ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ the other day and my entire body shuddered.”

“Don’t be a baby. That was ages ago.”

Steve pressed his cold toes against Bucky’s shins. “I know. I just like seeing how accepting you are of your past when you talk about it.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re a child.”

“Mmmm. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“There’s a deleted scene from Pocahontas.”

Steve jolted out of Bucky’s arms and sat upright. “Excuse me. _What_ did you say?”

Bucky reached over to the night stand and grabbed his phone, throwing it at Steve who deftly caught it. “Google ‘If I Never Knew You’.”

Steve hit play while quietly whispering, “Holy shit.” By the end of the song he was crying. “Why did they cut that?! What were they thinking?! That changes _everything_.”

Bucky laughed lightly. He quietly started reciting the lyrics.

“If I never held you,  
I would never have a clue  
How at last I'd find in you  
The missing part of me  
In this world so full of fear  
Full of rage and lies  
I can see the truth so clear  
In your eyes  
So dry your eyes  
And I'm so grateful to you  
I'd have lived my whole life through  
Lost forever  
If I never knew you.”

Steve stared at him. “First Shakespeare, now Disney lyrics? You don’t have to woo me anymore. Pretty sure you’re stuck with me.”

Bucky just burrowed deeper into the covers, settling in to go back to sleep. “Mm I like reciting stuff. Reminds me I can still remember shit.”

“You’re a sap.”

“ _You’re_ a sap.”

“...I love you.”

“I love you too.” Steve waiting until Bucky started to drift off. “You know it’s 5pm, right? We’ve got to meet Pepper and Tony for dinner in an hour.”

Bucky groaned and stole Steve’s pillow to put over his head. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Guess I’m gonna have to find someone else as my plus one to the Led Zeppelin concert after dinner.”

Bucky threw the pillow away, wide awake. “Steve, what?”

Steve just shook his head as he started getting dressed. “You’re not coming, don’t worry.”

“Steve.”

“Bucky.”

“Steve.”

“ _Bucky_.”

“...Steve.”

“Get dressed, Buck.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I still hate it when you do that.”

“I still know.”

“Fuck you.”

“Later.”

“...yeah. Later.”

They were late to dinner. There was no Led Zeppelin concert after.


End file.
